Artist formerly known as RIM —

BlackBerry’s high unit sales in UK and Canada may be overestimated

The Z10 handset is selling, but how many is still unclear.

The BlackBerry Z10 has allegedly been selling like hotcakes in Canada and the UK since its launch earlier this month. BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins even told AllThingsD that sales were "50 percent better than any other launch day in our history in Canada." This news helps the Canada-based company paint quite an optimistic portrait about its future in the mobile industry, especially considering that BlackBerry 10 and its corresponding handsets are its major bet for a resurgence. However, sales might not be as peachy keen as the company wants people to believe.

Deutsche Bank's Brian Modoff surveyed 60 participating carrier stores around the UK and Canada to find out just how many stores were selling BlackBerry's flagship phones. Modoff discovered that none of the locations surveyed in the UK were sold out of the devices, while some of the locations in Canada that were sold out had stated that they didn't have that large of an inventory to begin with.

“In Canada, many stores reported being sold out of the Z10 and the sales force was well-versed on the device’s attributes; however, a few representatives told us that they did not receive a large initial inventory,” Modoff told All Things D. “In the UK, the sales force was better-versed on the feature sets relative to the week prior; however, no stores were sold out.”

There are no official sales numbers to refer to, nor do Modoff's claims bare any proof of how BlackBerry handset sales are performing. The survey number is also so minimal in comparison to how many outlets actually offer the BlackBerry handset. However, if it turns out that this is an indication of how BlackBerry is actually doing, it could be worrisome for the company, especially considering the upcoming US launch. To be fair, no assessment can be made until the numbers are published, so we're still taking a "wait and see" approach.

Florence Ion
Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.

54 Reader Comments

"To be fair, no assessment can be made until the numbers are published, so we're still taking a "wait and see" approach."

No, you're not, at all. You're doing exactly the opposite. You're making a judgement with a negative suppositional report based on poor fact-finding. This isn't reporting.

I'm not a BlackBerry guy. At all. I got burned by the Storm and Storm II and I'm STILL pissed off about it... and I think you need to take this story down. This is a distinct case of kicking a brand while it's down. If you were indeed taking a "wait and see" approach, you actually would have waited to see until there were actual numbers to report, instead of reporting this non-event. Did Modoff ask if the stores had been restocked through drop shipments? Did he classify what "inadequate stock levels" were? Who is he attached to, investment-wise? Where's the disclosure.

This COULD have been a story... if you'd actually done any investigation and any reporting. As Scott Adams said: you can spend the time actually investigating the facts or you can just repeat what you're told. The pay is the same.

Wow. Strange that you guys immediately believe some dude who does a survey with negative results over the CEO of the company. No need to like BlackBerry, but at least try to fair when discussing their products.

The day after launch I visited 4 malls in the Greater Vancouver area and out of 30-some stores, 3 had stock. Everyone else sold out on day one. Booth, Wireless Wave, Rogers, Bell, Telus, Future Shop, Best Buy and a bunch of other places. I've been out a couple times since then probing, and I'm still finding places who are out of stock.

That's about as credible as the information you're making a story out of here. You should make a story out of that. "Z10 Sells like Hot Cakes in Vancouver because one guy had trouble finding them!"

I couldn't buy it though because I'm unemployed, which is why I was able to go out phone hunting in the middle of the day.

This is now the 2nd story in very recent memory that worries me about Ars going the way of those other sites that used to be educational, informative and good, but turned to cheap headlines, with non-credible content, for reader volume. Ars, please don't go down that path... Please re-evaluate this strategy in case it is actually what is happening. You basically just published a story about what somebody is saying about numbers that don't exist yet. You see why this concerns me?

I knew before getting into the comments that people would be jumping all over Ars for publishing this. It's just an early hint, the first 3rd-party estimate out there, and Ars isn't selling it as anything more than that. Don't get your knickers in a knot; I bet none of you would be bitching about it if the estimate suggested really strong sales.

Omegajimes wrote:

The day after launch I visited 4 malls in the Greater Vancouver area and out of 30-some stores, 3 had stock.

This is interesting, and hopefully a good sign for RIM. Did you ask anyone how many they received?

"To be fair, no assessment can be made until the numbers are published, so we're still taking a "wait and see" approach."

No, you're not, at all. You're doing exactly the opposite. You're making a judgement with a negative suppositional report based on poor fact-finding. This isn't reporting.

I'm not a BlackBerry guy. At all. I got burned by the Storm and Storm II and I'm STILL pissed off about it... and I think you need to take this story down. This is a distinct case of kicking a brand while it's down. If you were indeed taking a "wait and see" approach, you actually would have waited to see until there were actual numbers to report, instead of reporting this non-event. Did Modoff ask if the stores had been restocked through drop shipments? Did he classify what "inadequate stock levels" were? Who is he attached to, investment-wise? Where's the disclosure.

This COULD have been a story... if you'd actually done any investigation and any reporting. As Scott Adams said: you can spend the time actually investigating the facts or you can just repeat what you're told. The pay is the same.

Shame on you.

I have to agree with this poster. This "story" is less than rumor.

A few actual facts would help. Call BB and ask them to supply actual numbers shipped or reported sold. If they won't, consult something/one more substantial in the industry for some kind of estimates that have some weight.

How long has it been since launch now? 2-3 Weeks? (I really can't remember.)

Until all phone/tablet/laptop/food-processor manufacturers post a live counter on their web sites with actual product activations, we're going to be subjected to this sort of speculative and semantic game playing.

"Selling better than expectations"

"Lackluster sales"

"Sold out!"

"50% more/less than previous launch"

"Quite smooth"

These are all non-objective measures that can both bolster fanboys and fuel flamers. And this will happen every time a new product gets launched, so get used to it.

Wow. Strange that you guys immediately believe some dude who does a survey with negative results over the CEO of the company. No need to like BlackBerry, but at least try to fair when discussing their products.

To be fair, the CEO's of RIM had lied so much during their last few years there, that it is hard to believe what any CEO of that company says. Doesn't make the story true or untrue, however.

I knew before getting into the comments that people would be jumping all over Ars for publishing this. It's just an early hint, the first 3rd-party estimate out there, and Ars isn't selling it as anything more than that. Don't get your knickers in a knot; I bet none of you would be bitching about it if the estimate suggested really strong sales.

Omegajimes wrote:

The day after launch I visited 4 malls in the Greater Vancouver area and out of 30-some stores, 3 had stock.

This is interesting, and hopefully a good sign for RIM. Did you ask anyone how many they received?

Wow. Strange that you guys immediately believe some dude who does a survey with negative results over the CEO of the company. No need to like BlackBerry, but at least try to fair when discussing their products.

The CEO was deliberately attempting to create positive rumours by putting out statements about how great the launch was without citing any actual numbers. The media ran those press releases rather uncritically. This story restores some balance. The fact is Apple discloses their launch weekend sales as well as their quarterly sales. RIM does the latter while everyone else does neither. If they don't want to be the subject of rumours, all they have to do is tell the full truth, however, they've decided the rumours are better. What does that say?

Odd, my friend manages a Bell store and said that it was busier for BB10 sales than the iPhone 5 launch.

... because for the iPhone launch in Canada you had to reserve online in advance and there were only a few phones available per outlet so nobody came because they knew they wouldn't get one. The BB launch had ample inventory for the most part, and everyone knew it.

There are lots of way to tell the story of the Blackberry Z10 launch, Ars has chosen theirs I suppose. I know my job would be easier if all I had to do is republish other people's opinions rather than investigating or adding some insight, or compared features such as Balance, Timeshift, etc.

The HuffingtonPostification of Ars has begun? Guess the proof will come out when the financial results come out.

To summarize, Heins reports 50% better sales any other Blackberry launch. Deutsche Bank reports stores aren't sold out. The article implies that one claim refutes the other. It might just be me, but would it be possible for Blackberry to sell 50% better and not be sold out?

Since when is success directly linked to being sold out? Sell outs could imply success, or could imply poor inventory management.

I have to agree that this is a non-story. Sounds like speculation and regurgitation. I realize that there was some ass-covering at the end, but the headline and the gist of the article present a negative view with almost no evidence to substantiate. Kind of like this article, which turned out to be completely off the mark. Kudos to Mr. Gallagher for writing the follow-up to the first gaff with a more balanced view.

Please consider not publishing speculative stories like this in the future, it is distasteful and damages Ars' reputation as a reputable site for tech news.

But yeah, RIM's (not gonna call them 'Blackberry' yet) next quarterly financials may very well make or break them as a company.

Kind of. Unless the numbers are really bad, RIM can just say 'wait until we launch in the US and/or wait until we launch the Q10'. So we won't really know until the quarterly report after this one, to be released in June.

Also, remember that sales of the Z10 in Canada and the UK will be dwarfed by sales of older models in other countries, primarily the developing world. RIM likely will not give a sales breakdown by model, so a small uptick or downtick in sales of the older model could completely obscure the sales of the Z10, making this quarter's results very hard to interpret. Of course if RIM actually makes a profit, that would strongly suggest high sales of the higher margin Z10, but I don't think it will be that clear cut.

They would sell more if there were more. I can't buy one in my city. So where are they all. My thought is they shipped them where they knew they would sell out. None of the main telcos have them here or their third party sellers. I'm willing to buy one for $550 without a contract, so Blackberry lets get the production rolling.

"To be fair, no assessment can be made until the numbers are published, so we're still taking a "wait and see" approach."

No, you're not, at all. You're doing exactly the opposite. You're making a judgement with a negative suppositional report based on poor fact-finding. This isn't reporting.

I'm not a BlackBerry guy. At all. I got burned by the Storm and Storm II and I'm STILL pissed off about it... and I think you need to take this story down. This is a distinct case of kicking a brand while it's down. If you were indeed taking a "wait and see" approach, you actually would have waited to see until there were actual numbers to report, instead of reporting this non-event. Did Modoff ask if the stores had been restocked through drop shipments? Did he classify what "inadequate stock levels" were? Who is he attached to, investment-wise? Where's the disclosure.

This COULD have been a story... if you'd actually done any investigation and any reporting. As Scott Adams said: you can spend the time actually investigating the facts or you can just repeat what you're told. The pay is the same.

Wow. Strange that you guys immediately believe some dude who does a survey with negative results .

The shoddy approach to the survey should actually be the story. Instead of asking the stores how many did you sell, the question is about "selling out".

Maybe, just maybe. Blackberry accurately estimated demand and put enough phones in stores to meet demand. The world is getting a bit warped when that becomes a "bad" business practice. 'Sold out' measures how accurate Blackberry's marketing forecasts were. Especially in the context of doing a limited worldwide roll-out.

If trying to build word-of-mouth with actual customers it certainly helps to put actual devices in the hands of those customers.

It isn't surprising that some stock analyst is trying to guage the hype and hysteria factor instead of the actual fundamentals.

Wow. Strange that you guys immediately believe some dude who does a survey with negative results over the CEO of the company. No need to like BlackBerry, but at least try to fair when discussing their products.

To be fair, the CEO's of RIM had lied so much during their last few years there, that it is hard to believe what any CEO of that company says. Doesn't make the story true or untrue, however.

But would you trust Lackberry's current CEO? Don't forget he was at Siemens Mobile when that business was driven head first into the ground, after which even the sale to BenQ was botched.

I can imagine they'd benefit from a commercial showcasing their OS, security features and how social apps work otherwise I can't foresee iOS and Android stalwarts making the investment. Seamless Mac/PC syncing making an appearance in said commercial couldn't hurt... maybe what it does better than the other phones, too... they're trying to preach to a choir whom have left for another congregation long ago.

The iphone5 is a product easily ignored. Might as well get a 4s if you are in the market for an iphone.

You don't get it. I don't give a damn about first day sales. It is just hype. If the iphone 5 was any good, do you think Apple stock would be as low as it is now. Do you think investors would be demanding Apple distribute earnings if they thought Apple had a clue what to do next? Do you think?